


The Fall

by shittershutter



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse)
Genre: Bottom!Nate, Cablepool - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:39:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15219338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shittershutter/pseuds/shittershutter
Summary: Nate is not quite "wounded" when that strange glow engulfs his body, that'd be an insult to anyone who has ever been in combat. It's like someone - something - just yanks the cord and turns him off. Not entirely, but in parts, those parts that are not quite his to order around anymore.





	The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> * Unbetad. Very sorry.

In retrospect, they should've paid more attention to the villain's weapon and its effect on the surrounding area instead of arguing about a proper name to address it. Namely how the aforementioned area would go completely dark right after a series of explosions and how the survivors would have to feel their way out through the debris without a single cell phone torch in sight. 

But back to the semantics, to Nate, it looks like an honest to god rocket launcher. Modified and definitely unregistered, fact, but still just an old, boring rocket launcher. 

Wade wants to call it a "blaster" because of the blasting sound it emits and the strange, downright creepy cosmic glow that surrounds it whenever it's on. 

Nate is about to yell at him that he's been in the military for decades, and no one ever, ever used that fucking word because it's vague which renders it completely useless in field conditions when the villain of the week appears right in front of him as if to present the weapon for a closer inspection so Nate can make up his mind. 

Then he blasts him with it, point blank, and it turns out it's a fucking blaster, all right.

Nate is not quite "wounded" when that strange glow engulfs his body, that'd be an insult to anyone who has ever been in combat. It's like someone - something - just yanks the cord and turns him off. Not entirely, but in parts, those parts that are not quite his to order around anymore. 

The legs are still his but the upper spine with anything attached is off to the sunset and Nate falls, off-balance and half-blind, off the roof, knocking himself blissfully out with the second-floor air conditioner.

He's briefly back to his senses in what looks like a military ambulance howling through the city, and the good news is his eye works along with the muscles around it. The jaw is the bad news. 

Someone faceless leans in with a hissing oxygen mask in their hand and Nate digs his heels in to fight because he knows where this is going. People usually want to knock him out to cut him open and poke around some, and he's not here for that. But then Wade's face comes into view, bloodied and uncharacteristically serious. 

Nate expects a punchline -- he deserves one, being all old and grey, going through the most fucked up stroke ever in the medical history. The heart monitor is hysterical, showcasing the terror he's in.

But Wade is a smart boy, he puts his gloved hand on his cheek where he can still feel it and just hisses: "Shhhhhhhh..." until the mask is on and Nate is out again. 

* * * 

Wade walks in solemn semi-circles around the hospital bed, and sometimes his steps are heavy with his combat boots. Sometimes they are squeaky and light with the casual sneakers. And sometimes they are bouncy with the bunny slippers when he's inclined to settle in and make himself at home.

Days go by. When Wade isn't pacing he holds a vigil at the bedside, hunched over like a fangless gargoyle, the nervous energy coming off him in waves as his feet drum and his fingers tap.

He chain-smokes -- at some point, the staff disables the smoke detector in the room after Wade fires a few warning shots into the ceiling to get the point across -- and as it sips into the textiles and sticks to the walls, the heavy smell of it does make Nate feel at home, too.

When he can open his functioning eye just a bit, to peak down from under the lashes he can always see his hand in Wade's, day and night. 

The white council that shows up to poke him every once and a while is keeping their distance from the younger man -- either out of respect for the desperate spouse or for the guns, the swords and on one occasion a flamethrower against the wall -- but either way, they are polite and judging by the stifled amplitude of their movements very gentle with Nate's body parts. 

Not that he can feel anything to appreciate that. 

The white shapes turn into orange and khaki and green -- electricians, locksmiths, mechanics and then some genius kid from that tech startup in Norway that built a fully functional biomechanical skeleton a year ago. 

"Just collecting opinions," Wade whispers when Nate glares at him with one eye. "Won't hurt." Then he lowers his head and presumably kisses the older man's shoulder. That or the side of his neck -- he can't really tell but if he could he'd appreciate either. 

One morning Nate wakes up to Domino at his bed instead. "Gone to work," she says. "To catch and most likely behead your blaster guy." Then, when Nate's gaze drops to his hand between hers in a most intimate gesture they've shared ever, adds: "He told me to never let you go."

There is a gun on the bedside table, its barrel staring Nate right in the eye, to keep the amateur security operation running. 

It's a mutant-friendly medical facility but Nate is never alone with the personnel. Because you give those doctors someone with a condition rare enough and they'll whisk them away to the underground base inside the mountain, saw them into pieces and make hair conditioner for super soldiers or some shit out of them. 

"You're not going to leave me with him, do you? Domino asks after a while when he's drifting away again and he stares back at her so hard he pulls the only muscle he can feel pulling, between the corner of his eye and the eyebrow. 

"Because don't. He'll get _upset_ ," she doesn't look at him not to give him hints they are something more than professional rampage partners and casual drinking buddies. "And you know how the boss is when he is upset."

Nate would nod in recognition if he could. Wade is sinew, blood, and murder when he's upset. And it's not like it's entirely unattractive to him; not like he hasn't fucked the man while licking other people's blood off his face, hands and neck, but still. Can be a bit much for those with overly empathic guts. 

He stares back at Domino, trying to convey his will to fight and he thinks he does a good job in the end because she blinks back like a cat would and puts his fleshy arm down the bedding, trusting him to have this tiny bit of freedom. 

* * * 

The moment the sensitivity returns to the tips of his fingers, he wiggles them slightly against the younger man's cheek. The sigh of relief that leaves Wade's body then is deafening in sharp contrast with the sterile silence of the hospital room. It goes on and on until Wade sinks against the bed, boneless.

"You old fuck," he mumbles in reverence with a pinch of accusation thrown in. 

Nate doesn't contest the statement. He's been laying the whole speaking thing off for a while now until he can get a better grip of the surroundings. It's either he has a tube down his throat or the numbness alternating with the nagging discomfort -- a tonsilitis from hell with a whiff of barbwire on top by the feel of it -- is actually the virus getting to his voice box. 

In which case he's switching to the notes or the sign language -- there is no way in fucking hell he's spending his remaining human years sounding like a vintage techno record. 

The process of coming back to life is neither pleasant nor life-affirming. The virus moves through Nate, pinging, checking, scanning like any complex machine when coming back online. He can feel every artery and the smallest mechanical bone switching on with a short burst of energy.

And the time it takes just makes him realize how much of him isn't really him anymore. 

Nate uses the newfound mobility to push the magic painkiller button into oblivion, sending it down to his vein until he is high to the point he can neither feel it nor remember what unsettled him so badly in the first place.

It comes at him like an ocean wave -- warm and fluid -- and it carries him until there is a solid surface under. It's not sand like he's expected but the relative softness of their bed, with all the dents in the mattress he recognizes. 

Wade he sees before him is a poor reconstruction his drugged out brain does from a single blurred picture he's found under a couch years ago. The photo of Wade with an easier smile and fluffy hair, the kind that makes dangerous men look younger than they are. 

Wade snatched it away from his fingers with an impassive "ugh, no" -- poof, and it was gone -- but what remained was the obsessive desire to run his fingers through that hair at least once. 

It feels like a betrayal in a way -- that his hallucination involves a hotter Wade, not the one Nate has stuck with. But while he has no idea who's paying for his hospital stay and all the drugs he's on but whoever they are, they better be sure he's riding every second of this trip out. 

It is Wade and not his wife because in training he is told time and time again to pick one reality and stick to it. It can be his previous life before the jump or the new one he's acquired but for the sanity's sake, it has to be one. 

The paradox has fried enough brains of the best and the brightest. Nate himself knows two Russels, vastly different at polar points but merging into a single diabetic shithead in the middle, and wanting to blow his brains out and pat him on the back at the same time is causing him migraines. Other than that, he's sticking to the present and is managing the paradox pretty well. 

He still goes to the park one day, finds the slightly slimmer oak tree he kissed his wife under for the first time and scratches her name on it with the metal finger thus breaking every rule in the book. 

He never tells Wade that. But maybe one day she'll pass by and know that missing her still fries his brain a little as well. 

When the painkillers Wade climbs onto the bed, blurry at the edges, with his eyebrows looking all weird on his face, Nate reaches out to him, slides his hand down the smooth, healthy skin and loses all the guilt along the way. 

There are scars on him still, the ones Wade has told him about before -- the knives, the bullets and by the look of it, a customized sword right under the ribs but their texture has the variety to it, the smoothness and the hairs between. 

Every detail is so precise Nate has to fight the horror squeezing his throat abruptly. What if the virus has his brain already, hence the clarity, the inhuman perfection of the visuals? 

Wade leans in and kisses him, teeth and tongue, pushing the fear down the throat until the older man swallows it, lets it go. 

They don't speak at all. Nate as a firm believer in not wasting air when high, Wade -- the fictional, perfect Wade -- as someone who's just too cute to rely on his tongue when he has the cheekbones and the catalog smile. 

There is a short prelude of them adjusting, knees bumping, when Wade wants to turn him over and Nate digs in, elbows and feet, not to miss the show and to finally get both of his hands into that fluffy hair. 

This is when Nate notices, minutes or maybe hours into the scene, that both of his own hands are human. Nails, veins, short hairs and all. He just shows them both to Wade, wiggling his fingers, like going the good old melancholia route when on drugs is some kind of a fucking achievement. 

The younger man takes both of his palms in his, one after the other, and kisses them making Nate's breath hitch. It's not real but he swears both of his hands feel the same -- warm, made of flesh and bone -- like they are a part of him, like they belong. 

They go straight to fucking after that and in its perfect synchronicity, Nate can feel the coarse hair down Wade's stomach against his ass and balls. He moans at the contrast and the fake Wade from the past laughs at him breathlessly like the real one would. 

The dick inside him feels the same as he slides and bumps and then pulls out until only the head is inside, stretching, pulsating with the same frequency Wade's heartbeat drums against Nate's chest. 

The sweat pours -- he suspects he's sweating in reality, too, hence the sharp smell of it, too sharp for a hallucination -- and Nate's calf slides off the younger man's shoulder to be picked up again. 

Wade bends him in two, hands tangled with his, and pounds his ass like the real Wade would, with a skill of a legendary man whore and the enthusiasm of a schoolboy losing his virginity a year too early. 

Nate wants to tell him he loves him but reserves it for the real man and a more appropriate moment. Like a sunset above a burning city or some shit. It feels like a bit like cheating, too -- he has never known the man above him. What he's got is an updated version, a dozen bad life choices later.

Also, this dude has the eyebrows and it's fucking weird. 

So he gives that marvelous hair a goodbye tug as his hips keep bumping against the man and revels at the soft prickling of stubble against his cheeks while he still can. 

* * * 

"Was I any good?" 

Wade has his mask rolled up so it sits up on top of his head, Jacques Cousteau-style, revealing the unforgivable reality of his hairless face. 

Nate stares back with one eye. 

"The blood circulation in your pelvic area is working so impressively fine you nearly poked a hole through the comforter."

Nate coughs to give it a dry run and goes for the obvious: "Fuckface." It feels itchy but nice, just rolls off the tongue, hanging between them. Making Wade smile. 

"How much did you hear?" 

"Everything. And I have to say, I'm proud of my performance, by proxy and all."

They sit in silence until Nate gathers enough courage to try and move his head around. When the cranky bones give, he looks down and it's the same body he saw in the mirror the morning when everything went to shit, flesh, and metal. 

He was never the type to find comfort in stability but it feels like a good day to start. 

Wade tells him they are getting him out in a few days and when he takes a deeper breath reserved for worse news, Nate knows what will be said. They ran all their tests and then while being held at gunpoint by Wade they ran them again, and they came back inconclusive. 

Just like the first ever doctor who poked the first few metal fibers that appeared out of nowhere in the crease between the thumb and the forefinger, they came out with the unanimous "wait and see" diagnosis and even Wade's impressive weaponry couldn't sway them any other direction. 

Nate gives younger man's forearm a squeeze to make him release that breath. 

The weapon used on him wasn't meant for anything organic. They got himself in the middle of the corporate war between the Silicon Valley giants so the tech parts of Nate got hit pretty hard making the virus to reboot out of self-preservation. 

It's comforting to know there is a weapon that is a threat to his condition. But then again, Wade has probably blown it up along with his maker not to yank Nate's suicidal tendencies by the leash. 

"He called it a blaster, too, the motherfucker," Wade tells him and he's so pleased with himself Nate wants to punch him and kiss him at the same time and it doesn't stress his brain at all.


End file.
